November was wonderfully relaxed – despite the fact I have added an hour long 1 to 1 torture session with Action Dave in to my Fridays. For some inexplicable reason I have decided that I need to crack the art of doing press-ups, something I have never been able to do before now, even when young and lithe! He asssures me it will be a piece of cake – I’ll let you know next month, I have set a christmas day deadline.
I’ve been out to far too many suppers for someone trying to be predominantly on the waggon, and am now an expert on which non-alcoholic wines are drinkable and which deserve only to be poured down the sink (for the record, I recommend Rawsons Retreat – not exactly Latour or Margaux but drinkable). I have also discovered non-alcoholic, calorie free ‘gin’. OK, so it doesn’t taste like Hendrick’s, but it does taste like a ‘proper’ drink and I think it’s delicious – made by Seedlip it comes in two versions; spicy and christmassy, and my favourite, ‘garden’ which is lovely and ‘green’ tasting…
Mid-month I made my annual autumn pilgrimage to Kent where the usual suspects were on top form – no chance of not drinking there. As ever it was non-stop delicious food, fresh air, great conversation, fine wines and lots of laughing.
I got some flying in, and up until almost the end of the month George was in fine fettle – he even made it very clear to me that he wanted to do some cross country jumping… basically, whilst on a hack, by planting his hooves next to the field with the jumps in, doing a very smart ‘turn on the forehand’ (horse speak for swivelling round a front leg to be facing in a different direction – in this case in to the field) and refusing to move until I concurred. It was seriously good fun. I’m not sure which of us was smiling more by the end.
Unfortunately a couple of weeks later he managed to colic (tummy ache, which if left unattended can have serious – if not fatal – consequences). By total chance I was on the yard at the time and noticed something very slightly amiss early on (the first sign was him turning his nose up at a polo… George refusing food rings immediate alarm bells). Fortunately, the wonderful Diana from Anchorage Barn Equine Vets, was soon on hand (he was getting worse with alarming speed) and after she had administered pain relief and syphoned half a bucket full of parafin into his stomach via his nose all turned out fine… although he was not impressed by his 48 hours with no hay and only small, very sloppy feeds.
My main work outing was to Ros Canter‘s, where we were meeting with a potential new sponsor. All looks good and we should have things signed and sealed by Christmas. More on that in due course. So now it’s time to pack and head to the sub-zero climes of Norway…. seeing the aurora borealis has been on my bucket list for decades. Fingers crossed.